eard, as if he might wring the secret out of it.

"We have learned to manage the cholera, and see in it, not a
dispensation of Providence, but the natural result of filth and greed
and carelessness. Darcy and I are getting up a panacea now," with a
bright little laugh. "But how is Mrs. Cameron? Is her medicine out?"

"Yes;" and Cameron drew a phial from his pocket. "You don't think it
would do to stop here? She's pretty well, I should say;" and he fingered
the bottle as if he were debating whether to have it filled or not.

"No. She must go on. She is getting her strength back nicely; but it's
bad policy to stop at three-quarters of the race,--eh, Cameron? The
first warm day I'll take her out driving."

While he was talking, he reached out for the bottle, and began
compounding. Cameron nodded an acknowledgment of the last sentence, then
turning to Jack, said abruptly,--

"What was the scheme, Darcy?"

Jack flushed, and glanced at Maverick.

"Emigration, the old remedy," answered the doctor. "England has tried
her hand at it pretty successfully; so why shouldn't we? Only we need
not go out of our own country. There are thousands of acres of
productive land lying idle, and thousands of people starving, or worse.
Too many here,--not enough there."

"Where to?" Cameron asked laconically, his face unmoved by any ripple of
enthusiasm.

Jack seemed to be put on his mettle by it. Lack of faith in him always
roused his belligerent qualities, back in the old school days.

"Yes, Cameron," in an incisive tone, looking steadily out of his
determined eyes. "The cities are crowded over and over, and full of
tramps, and the West swarms with them. We need not imagine we have all
the idle people here at the East. But farming there has come to be a
business of great things, almost as bad as manufacturing. You must have
money, or the big fellows will swallow you up. But we were talking of
Florida. No winter, as one may say; and your house a simple matter, your
fuel, your clothes, a mere nothing. You could hardly starve if you
tried."

Cameron came back to his chair, pushed it out from the wall, planted
himself deliberately in it, and tilted back, pushing up his old felt
hat, as if he did not mean to have his vision obstructed. Then he gave
his beard another twist.

"Can you tell me why this is, Jack Darcy? Here are countries with fine
and lovely climates, where every thing grows to your hand; yet they
always seem to lie idle